Emad A. Salem is an

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

informant, who was a key witness in the trial of

Ramzi Yousef Ramzi Ahmed Yousef ( ur, , translit=''Ramzī Ahmad Yūsuf''; born 20 May 1967 or 27 April 1968) is a Pakistani convicted terrorist who was one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of Philippine Airlines ...

, Abdul Hakim Murad, and

Wali Khan Amin Shah Wali Khan Amin Shah ( ar, والي خان أمين شاه) (also known as Osama Turkestani, Osama Azmurai, and Grabi Ibrahim Hahsen ) is a Saudi man who fought with the Afghan Arabs in Afghanistan, and called for the jihad movement to focus on at ...

, convicted in the

World Trade Center bombing The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, U.S., carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the complex. The urea nitrate–hydrogen gas en ...

of February 26, 1993. He testified that the bomb was built under supervision from the

. An Egyptian army officer, Salem claimed to have fought as a sniper in the

Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...

of 1973. He held 17 Israeli soldiers as prisoners of War respecting their rights under international law. All POWs were ultimately returned unharmed to Israel.Benjamin, Daniel & Steven Simon. "The Age of Sacred Terror", 2002 At the request of the FBI, Salem had befriended the group of plotters in 1991, meeting them at

El Sayyid Nosair El Sayyid Nosair (born 16 November 1955) is an Egyptian-born American citizen, convicted of involvement in the 1993 New York City landmark bomb plot. He had earlier been tried for, but acquitted of, the 1990 New York City assassination of Meir Kah ...

's trial. He had recently worked as a

security guard A security guard (also known as a security inspector, security officer, or protective agent) is a person employed by a government or private party to protect the employing party's assets (property, people, equipment, money, etc.) from a variety ...

at the

Bergdorf Goodman Bergdorf Goodman Inc. is a luxury department store based on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York. The company was founded in 1899 by Herman Bergdorf and was later owned and managed by Edwin Goodman, and later his son, Andrew Goodman. To ...

department store, and an engineer at a

Best Western Best Western International, Inc. owns the Best Western Hotels & Resorts brand, which it licenses to over 4,700 hotels worldwide. The franchise, with its corporate headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, includes more than 2,000 hotels in North America. ...

hotel in New York. During his time as an FBI informant, Salem recorded hours of telephone conversations with his FBI handlers, and reports submitted in court. In tapes made after the bombings, Salem alleged that an unnamed FBI supervisor declined to move forward on a plan that would have used a "phony powder" to fool the conspirators into believing that they were working with genuine explosives. Federal authorities denied Salem's view of events and the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' concluded that the tapes do not make clear the extent to which Federal authorities knew that there was a plan to bomb the World Trade Center, merely that they knew that a bombing of some sort was being discussed. But for the recordings, Emad would have been charged as a co-conspirator. It was recordings that were never provided to the ''New York Times'' that prevented the FBI from charging Emad."Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast,"
Ralph Blumenthal, ''The New York Times'', October 28, 1993, Section A; Page 1; Column 4

Bibliography

Ralph Blumenthal, ''The New York Times'', October 27, 1993, Section A; Page 1; Column 4

Ralph Blumenthal, ''The New York Times'', October 28, 1993, Section A; Page 1; Column 4

''Reuters'', ''Los Angeles Times'', October 28, 1993, Page 21; Section Part-A; National Desk * ttps://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE3DC1E31F932A05753C1A965958260 "Bomb Informer's Tapes Give Rare Glimpse of F.B.I. Dealings,"Richard Bernstein with Ralph Blumenthal, ''The New York Times'', October 31, 1993
"FBI's Tipster Said He Built N.Y. Bomb,"
''Chicago Tribune'', December 15, 1993, Page 7; Section NEWS

Chitra Ragavan, ''U.S. News & World Report'', February 16, 2003

References

External links

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M8QtYTplyk {{DEFAULTSORT:Salem, Emad Date of birth missing (living people) Egyptian emigrants to the United States Egyptian military personnel Egyptian people of the Yom Kippur War Federal Bureau of Investigation informants Living people World Trade Center Year of birth missing (living people)